A Pound of Flesh
by Thomas M Riddle
Summary: AU: In her sixth year, Hermione engineers a way to reawaken Tom Riddle's diary. But forbidden magic has its risks, and she finds herself locked in a deadly battle of wits with the most dangerous teenaged Dark Wizard of all time. A game where the only way to win may be to prove the Sorting Hat's decision to put her in Gryffindor wrong. TW: Torture (some sexualized)
1. Chapter 1

_Chapter One_

Dear Diary, I feel a little awkward doing this, but I have to talk to someone!

**_Did you exhume me to play at charades?_**

What is this? Is this some kind of prank?

**_One does not play with objects like this, and one especially does not play pranks._**

Who are you? How are you using this book?

**_The bigger question is who are you and why are you wasting my time with questions you already know the answer to._**

You're right. I can do more interesting things than chat with you, but you're stuck there, right?

**_Who are you? The person who woke me up? Who put you up to this? Malfoy? Avery?_**

They're dead. Do you reboot if you're reawoken? Do you remember Ginny Weasley?

**_Vividly. But why do you care?_**

You're dead, too. Or at least the person you're a shadow of. I'm a researcher.

**_Liar._**

We can talk, or you can go back in your box.

**_And waste all that effort you put into resurrecting me? Either you are supremely foolish or more powerful than Albus Dumbledore himself._**

Right. I'll try again tomorrow.

**_Don't you fucking dare close me._**

Do you have something useful to say? 3... 2... 1.

**_Do you know who I am?_**

Yes.

**_Who am I, then?_**

I really don't care to keep answering your questions. You have enough to be going on with. We can talk together, or I can go look through other parts of the Archives for this project.

**_So that's it, then? Trying to wring information out of me? Hoping I'll help you prove to Harry Potter just how poor his taste in women is?_**

We're trying to get a better picture of what happened in the War. To deal with any future unpleasantness. And simply to understand.

You're dead. Your followers are dead or imprisoned. If you want any last influence over your memory, this memory is all you've got to exert it with.

**_You really don't know how that spell you used to wake me up works, do you, little girl?_**

Why don't you tell me. What does it feel like from your end? I know the logistics from mine.

There's a limit to how much energy you can draw from this connection. You're not dealing with a lovesick first year this go-round.

**_Energy I can..._**

**_I'm sorry, clearly I have been mistaken. The stress of reawakening after just having been stabbed with a fang from your favorite childhood pet can inhibit one's judgment. You must have questions._**

I do. And you can cut the "I'm sorrys." I don't have any expectation that you enjoy your current situation or want to play nice. Just that it's a bit more interesting than the alternative.

**_Oh, but I insist. Politeness is all I have left, if your tale is true. The memories of a teenage Dark Lord can hardly insist on much sympathy, can they?_**

As far as I'm concerned, you're a historical document. I'm certainly _interested_ but sympathy or spleen don't really enter into it.

**_Girl after my own heart._**

Just your mind, thanks. I'm curious about this diary and the trap you and Lucius Malfoy laid for Ginny. It was a rather slow way of killing people. Was it part of a larger plan, or just an attempt to disrupt or discomfit Hogwarts students and professors?

**_I and Lucius Malfoy? I assure you, Miss...Granger, is it?_**

Waiting for an answer.

**_I assure you, Miss Granger, Lucius Malfoy and I never spoke at all. At least, not when I was in this form. All I know is that I was opened one day by a strange girl and immediately flooded with information that I neither cared about nor understood the relevance of until I began writing back. Rather like this situation._**

I'm sure you don't expect me to believe that Ginny Weasley was plotting tactics to terrorize Hogwarts. You made a choice, once you had her. I'd like to know why you chose to use her in that particular fashion.

**_Ginny Weasley is as incapable of plotting tactics to terrorize Hogwarts as she should be of holding your friend Mr. Potter's attention. As to why I chose to use her in that way, let us say I was _****bored. ****_You know what that's like, I assume?_**

Couldn't find a good novel? Or article? Or a way of killing Harry? Why _this_?

**_...He doesn't share information with you, does he?_**

My questions, not yours.

**_My apologies, Miss Granger._**

Your thoughts, please, not your apologies, either. I know you're creative. Why pick off students?

**_Students? As I understand it, I merely picked off human shields. Miss Weasley was very informative about Mr. Potter, you see. Told me all about him. How he was so _****brave****_, so _****sweet****_, how he had _****no parents****_ because of the _****evil wizard who had killed them****_. The _****evil wizard who he'd managed to defeat forever just by sitting there and squirming in his crib. ****_If you think I was targeting students at random after hearing that, you are gravely mistaken, Miss Granger._**

So, just testing his defenses? Waiting for data?

**_Attempting to penetrate them, I think. Without success. Come to think of it, I seem to recall Ginny screaming at me for accidentally petrifying one of his _****friends. ****_In the library, I recall it being. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?_**

She came out of it all right. Just like nearly everyone you did hit.

**_How is it that Hogwarts has so many reflective surfaces in it? That seems like rather too convincing a stroke of luck._**

Well, most people just got lucky. But I _knew _it had to be a basilisk, so I was deliberately using a mirror to check corners. If I'd had a little more time, you wouldn't have gotten Ginny to the Chamber at all. But it took Harry longer to work it out after I was out of play.

**_...So you've met my pet. I thought researchers were supposed to be objective about their subject matter, Miss Granger. _**

I'm very good at being reasonable. You may have lost the War, but you didn't leave very many totally disinterested parties in your wake.

And besides, I met your 'pet' only very very briefly.

**_I suppose I also killed enough actual researchers that scholarship is rather difficult to conduct, yes? It would be the only explanation for entrusting this sort of artifact to a sixteen-year-old girl. I mean, Dumbledore was never very good about pedagogical ethics, but this is a new low._**

You used my name before I mentioned being attacked. How did you know who you were writing to?

**_I know a lot about you, Hermione Granger. It comes with the territory of waking me up._**

Well, if you don't want to talk about the Chamber fiasco, I'm glad to talk about that instead. Your diary is rather different from a magical portrait. Reverse engineering some of the spells was interesting.

**_Reverse engineering? You mean to say you worked out how to wake me up all by yourself?_**

Sure. I didn't think a spell that powerful could have been totally neutralized, even by basilisk venom. I've been working on this for a while, but the traces were still there. I had to cobble together revivals from a couple different sources. Your work is very beautiful. This reawakening is a bit of a kludge, but it works.

**_Beautiful? You should have been in my house, Miss Granger. Dumbledore put you up to this, didn't he?_**

If you want to talk spellwork, let's talk spellwork. I want to know more about how you made this.

**_Surely you've tried looking in the Restricted Section?_**

I think you're a little faster and more interesting than the _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_. Can you tell me more about this? Is this the only one you made?

**_No. But it is the first you've remade. What do you think you did, exactly, Miss Granger?_**

Brought you back on line.

**_"On line?" _**

Got you up and running again. I know what _I _did. I want to know what _you_ did.

I'm concerned this may not be as high-fidelity a copy as the one you originally made. Do you notice any difference from your end?

**_I seem to remember a very irritating young blonde girl...Sue Higgins, is it? In a classroom I don't remember ever seeing. Screaming. Without making a sound. That wasn't there before._**

….Any other anomalies? I have to go for a bit, but you could flag them for me. I'm open to suggestions for fixes, but obviously I'll have to take a good look at any modifications you suggest.

**_"She's a nightmare. No wonder she doesn't have any friends." This phrase seems to make me uncomfortable._**

You know more about how you set this up than I did. Tell me what you did and I may be able to do something about your discomfort.

**_Don't trouble yourself. These anomalies are very interesting. I seem to remember losing at Wizard Chess. It's a new experience. So is wearing a Gryffindor scarf. And blushing._**

Cute. Is this how you read Ginny, or did you pull additional information from the blood ritual I adapted? I want to know if this transference is an intrinsic part of the spell you made originally.

**_I had these memories the instant I was reawakened. And based on what I remember of making this myself, that is exactly what _****should ****_have happened._**

Expand, please.

**_No. Close me. I have enough to think about. For instance, why I have all these memories of purposefully losing at Wizard chess._**

Really? The teenage version of Voldemort is more interested in flirting than in spell mechanics? I find that implausible.

**_You _****do know ****_who I am. And I know the mechanics of this spell, Miss Granger. Intimately. It is you who wants to know it, and I don't particularly feel like answering. I am more interested in _****you. ****_Close me._**

What an odd sort of compliment.


	2. Chapter 2

_Chapter Two_

**_Miss Granger? Is that you?_**

Interested in talking again?

**_It occurs to me that I might be able to offer you some help with fixing your spell._**

I'm interested in what you can tell me. Obviously I don't quite trust your offers of help. But I hope, as an artisan, you can appreciate the challenge of working through the damage that was done to you.

**_And I am _****ever****_ so grateful to you for doing such hard work. _**

Is it something to be grateful for? What is it like being in the book when there's no one there to talk to?

**_Like floating in a Pensieve, but with a bit more volition. You can see all your own memories...and the memories of the person who woke you up, in this case...in vivid detail._**

Please stop needling me about that. It was sloppy, and I'm terribly sorry you also have to endure the memory of what I looked like in pig-tails, but it's boring. I want to talk about magic and your tactics. You said you made more than one of these...

**_Magic. Now that I can help you understand. You never did tell me if you tried to discover this spell in the Restricted Section._**

Asking is not helping.

**_I cannot teach you if I do not know what skill level you are starting at, Miss Granger. Your knowledge is relevant._**

You can guess at my aptitude and I'll tell you to speed up or slow down. You must have some decent proxies, in the memories that slipped over.

**_If you had looked in the Restricted Section, which I don't believe you did, then you would have noticed that there is nothing at all about this kind of object there. Nor how to wake one up if you find it. And certainly nothing in the broader library. Don't you find that odd, for a glorified portrait?_**

If a professor were this coy, they'd be fired. I looked, and it seems like the most useful reference tome on this is you.

**_Because, if I know Albus Dumbledore, he will have _****banned****_ any books on what this diary is. Do you know what the Killing Curse does, Miss Granger? Besides kill?_**

I know it's unblockable. Except once. But I don't know much more than that.

**_Tsk tsk. What about the Dementor's kiss?_**

Severs the soul from the body. State of the soul, unknown; state of the body, very poor.

**_The Killing Curse does something very similar when used successfully. It severs _****part****_ of the soul from the body. Usually temporarily, unless...other steps are taken._**

Well, what happens to the rest of the soul? Clearly it's not still in the victim; they're dead.

**_Not the victim's soul, Miss Granger. The caster's soul. And the rest of their soul stays in their body. In fact, the severed piece reattaches, again, unless other steps are taken._**

Ok, so you kept that piece at arm's length and preserved it? Did that diminish you? Or is this like the Banach-Tarski paradox? Do you know that one? It's math, not magic.

**_I suppose it must diminish something, but the reward well outweighs the cost. So long as a piece of the caster's soul is preserved independent of their body, the caster's existence will always be preserved if their body is destroyed. I trust you can see the appeal._**

Sure. Pretty common in fairy tales. The magician who puts his life in his finger and then hides it in a chest, etc. What are the side effects? How did you mitigate them? Is it impossible to maintain a connection with the splintered self because that would undo the preservative effect? Is there any primacy among the selves? Do they diverge at that point, like identical twins?

**_You know, I always wanted to teach at Hogwarts, Miss Granger. I should have quite liked to have a student like you. The side effects are negligible; a little distortion of the features, perhaps, nothing more. Mood swings as the soul readjusts to missing a piece. One can interact with the missing piece, I suppose, except that the missing piece does not age or mature, and so after a point, it becomes rather like looking through a glass darkly. However, the missing piece can also take on a life of its own...if someone else interacts with it enough._**

Could you remerge them? Send one to become an adept in Transfiguration, and another in Charms and then re-fuse? Do they have to stagnate? Is that sad for you to not grow or age?

**_The only way to join two pieces of a soul is for one of them to feel remorse, an emotion I never had much time for, Miss Granger. But as to one being an adept in Transfiguration, and one being an adept in Charms, I suppose that would be no more strange than, say, a third year girl using a Time Turner to get to all her classes?_**

No, that's not really the same. I still experienced all that serially, and I got a bit older while I did it. I only moved fast relative to everyone else. If you could split and re-merge, you'd be working in parallel and wouldn't pick up the additional time. I basically just spent longer in class during third-year and then compressed all my experience to the same timescale as everyone else. But subjectively, it still took the amount of time it would have if the schedule and the curriculum had just been tailored to me.

**_Then suppose that disadvantage of experiencing everything serially is cut off. I must admit, the thought of having two separate selves learning two separate things had not occurred to me, but then this is rather a brand of magic that is too powerful for...most Hogwarts students to carry off successfully. _**

Well, also, there weren't computers (muggle technology) when you were around. They're a nice model for parallel vs serial processing, so the analogy is more likely to leap into my head than yours or anyone from 50 years ago.

**_Computers? You have my interest. I grew up in a Muggle orphanage, you see, and the workings of their world do not leave me entirely uninterested._**

Sure, but it's a bit complicated to bridge fifty years of tech. How much maths did you do? Any after you came to Hogwarts? They neglect it terribly here.

**_Orphanages are poor at providing education, as they are poor at providing everything else. I did rather have an easy time with Arithmancy, however._**

Ok, this is still a bit fiddly to explain. D'you mind if I try to tackle it tomorrow, after I've looked over some history books, so I know what to cover and try to organize everything in a reasonable way?

**_I think I can be persuaded to give you an extension. Two rolls of Parchment, Miss Granger._**

Ha! I'll cover some of that tomorrow. What did you plan to do with these kinds of artifacts when your were in sixth year? Why make them interactive, instead of just preservational, a la the old folk-tales?

**_Would you want any part of your soul to be bored without the prospect of entertainment forever, Miss Granger?_**

Certainly not. But it did rather put it at risk, since Harry damaged this one pretty badly after it drew focus. And I thought the goal was preservation. And anyway, if I could spill some memories in given the way I healed you, couldn't you load in a lot of reading? Or visit them periodically to check if they were safe and then give another infodump?

**_I rather think what you did is unique and would have required more than my future self would like to give up to any of these shards. Besides, my coming into the hands of Ginny Weasley was never supposed to happen. My future self must have been lazy in his choice of custodians._**

But, if not Ginny, who did you want to entertain them?

**_Can you think of no one better than Ginny Weasley to entertain me? Of course not. You can think of better than Ginny Weasley to entertain Harry Potter. Surely I rate similar concern._**

Well, obviously. But I want to know who you _did_ intend to amuse your shard-selves.

**_I do not know who my future self will have given me to. I believe you mentioned a Lucius Malfoy, and while the name of Malfoy is familiar to me, I do not know this Lucius. I presume he was one intended audience, however._**

I think you would have got bored there, too.

**_I think I would if you would, Miss Granger._**

I'll try to put together a bit more on the computers for tomorrow. I'd like to know from you where the rough spots are in the spell, that got some of my memories mixed in with yours. You're correct, this stuff wasn't in the restricted section.

**_I shall answer you as best I can, if you answer me as well as I know you can. Close me._**

See you tomorrow.


	3. Chapter 3

_Chapter Three_

Good morning.

**_Is it morning? I can never be sure._**

I've tried to summarize some things about computers. It would be a lot easier to just load in a textbook or two directly, but Hogwarts wouldn't have the relevant books anyway.

**_There may be a way to save your hand cramping before we even begin._**

Yes?

**_Think of all that you know about "computers." Then cast the spell you used to reawaken me._**

No. You pointed out, accurately, that that spell was not as precise as it could be. Your capacity to do harm is limited now, and I plan to keep it that way.

I can give my hand a chance to recover if we just match each other paragraph for paragraph. Our explanations will be a little disjointed, but we'll both get chances to rest.

**_Very well. Start writing._**

I want to know something different than the mechanics of the spell you used to make these. You never took over the wizarding world. You killed, you terrorized, but you never ruled. I want to know what you would have done.

**_Conquering magical Britain requires more than an encyclopedic knowledge of the Dark Arts, Miss Granger. One has to make allies. Were I able to seize control of the entire Ministry singlehandedly and install myself in every office simultaneously, I imagine I should have restricted admission to Hogwarts until such a time as I could have determined the cause of wizards being born of Muggles without explanation (and vice versa), and then proceed to employ the Department of Magical Law Enforcement to capture the children thus produced, while Obliviating the parents and placing the children in circumstances that would enable them to realize their heritage. Squibs would be left in their place. Hogwarts would also have to change. This institution neglects the Dark Arts at its peril, and in the event of an invasion from Bulgaria, or any of the more Dark-friendly countries, our wizards would almost certainly be powerless. However, because I had to get allies, there are promises that would have to be kept first. As to what those are, I want to hear from you before I say anything._**

Fair enough. Running independent copies in parallel does sound handy, huh? Here's my intro:

You can do math, and I imagine, like me, you can do it quickly. A computer is a machine that does it much faster than either of us. (Don't worry about _how_ yet, let me build this up conceptually, first). Magic lets us automate some things, but wizards tend to only automate things they could do already, but don't feel like doing (like stirring a pot). But when a computer does math _really fast_, it opens up possibilities that we wouldn't live long enough to pull off on our own. Muggles can use computers to model/simulate parts of the world and check how a lot of different tweaks or modifications will play out. You don't have to wonder what will happen, you can watch. We use them to predict weather, economics, wars, etc. Of course, it all depends at how good you are at asking the computer the question precisely.

Your turn again.

**_I think I will ask a question at the end of each of these missives. It will speed the process. In any case, I was saying about promises. It surely does not escape you, Miss Granger, that wizarding society is kind to some groups and not to others. Some I am neither politically interested in helping, nor personally interested in helping. Others I may not like, but can see a political use for. As you may imagine, being an orphan with a bastard Muggle name, I was not immediately welcomed into Slytherin with open arms when I arrived here. One or two of the pureblooded students found my entrance positively galling, in fact. Nevertheless, it became clear over my time at Hogwarts that if I wanted to achieve my goals, I would need purebloods to do so. Especially old pureblooded families who were tired of seeing their privileges diluted in the service of the vision of Muggle-loving idealistic fools like Albus Dumbledore. I would have to give them my first few concessions - an absolute ban on Muggle-borns in Hogwarts in the short run, for instance, as well as a purging of all Muggle-borns from positions of power, and possible incarceration in Azkaban. All that did not serve me, that is. You must understand, pureblooded wizards remember, as if it happened to them personally, that it used to be sport among Muggles to rape witches before they could control their magic. It is the story they tell themselves of why Muggle-borns exist in the first place: The products of their magic being stolen through violation. Of course, I would have to do more, and not just for them. The Dementors are treated little better than slaves in Azkaban - worse, in fact, as slaves at least can satisfy their masters occasionally - and I would have to give them a freer range for their talents. The Giants have long resented wizards, as have the Goblins, the Werewolves, and all other brands of part-human magical beasts. I would have to promise them inclusion and deliver it at the same time I shut the gates on the fingers of Muggle-borns. Very difficult, I assume you see._**

**_These computers, could they model magical phenomena, do you think?_**

I don't see why not. A computer doesn't have to understand _how_ something works. If it happens often enough and you have enough data, you can still end up with a reasonably accurate model. Think of the way people have misunderstood natural phenomena through history. We've stumbled on medicines that way. We know they work but not why. Sometimes a computer can approximate what's happening very closely, even if its explanation is wrong. If you remember Ptolemy from Astronomy, he had reasonably accurate predictions of where the planets would be, even if he didn't understand they orbited the sun.

Of course, sometimes the computer's model is _correct_, or at least you have better ways to test it than you did before, and you can come to understand a phenomenon that baffled you before. Actually, demographic analysis could have helped you sort out the purebloods concerns about _where_ Muggleborns like me come from. Gather enough data, and you'd be able to rule some causes in or out.

What possible good can Dementors serve?

**_Aside from imprisonment of my foes? None. However, they will not see it quite that way. Dementors lack human notions of good and evil. And why not? They are another species. I shall have to find some use for them, and I believe the most effective one will be to act as our guardians against the Muggle world. Muggles cannot see them, you know, though they can feel them and suffer the effects of their...talents. These days, we rely on anti-Muggle charms and various other childish things, but imagine how easy it would be to keep the bloody apes from ever discovering us if they were to spontaneously go catatonic the instant they got too close? The Dementors do not care. To them, all happiness is food, and the source is irrelevant._**

You're putting a lot of thought into how to make use of Dementors and none into how to coexist with Muggles. Dementors are pure need and are dangerous even to us. Muggles lack magic, but have intellects and have made some creations the wizarding world hasn't duplicated. If they weren't powerful, in their own way, there would be no need to talk about defense. Why are you focusing your effort on making use of the talents of the Dementors and not the Muggles?

**_Pure need. An apt term, but not for the Dementors. They may be dangerous to other wizards, but I have taken certain...safeguards. I cannot produce a Patronus, Miss Granger, not for lack of skill, but because I do not need one. Dementors feed on happiness, but happiness regenerates when left to itself. What muggles want is not nearly so ample. _****They ****_are pure need, Miss Granger. Pure need for magic, for innovation, for ever more, more, more, while plundering everything around them. I plunder as well, but I do it with the license of a power that can transfigure the broken into the mended at the swish of a wand and the whisper of a word. As a Wizard, and one who has taken precautions to avoid death, I can achieve the power of a God. Muggles never can, except insofar as a God can destroy. I do not deny that their toys may be useful, but the way that they use them is beyond redemption. I was alive when the atom bomb was detonated, Miss Granger, a weapon that makes the Killing Curse look positively quaint. And for what? Mastery over each other for a few piping years of peace. I would not put that much power to bear unless I stood a chance of being a God. Which I do, Miss Granger, unlike even the most ambitious Muggle leader. If they do that to each other, imagine what they would do if a magical threat to them appeared. No, what you are talking about is making common cause with creatures whose nature I cannot change, and against whom, unlike the Dementors, I have no failsafe. Safer to rely on the latter._**

**_Why Ron Weasley?_**

What?

**_Ron Weasley. The boy you keep losing to on purpose in these memories I have. I have been going over one or two of them. He's not particularly clever, not handsome, certainly doesn't seem to recognize you for the unique gem of intellect that you are, and throws himself into the arms of young ladies for whom "Won won" is apparently a credible term of endearment. Explain your reason, then, for desiring his affections._**

Wait, you want to know about my love life? I assumed when you gossiped with Ginny it was because you were pretending to be shallow. I'll grant you Ron is a bit less interesting than the history of computing, so I'm confused why you'd swap a paragraph of that for one on him.

**_I am going to be trapped in this diary for the rest of time, aren't I, Miss Granger? I will have ample time to question you about computing. But because your memories have been with me night and day since you reawakened me, I have been forced to witness your courtship again and again out of boredom, and it is a question I must have an answer to, if I am to make any sense of the absurd farces that I see playing out in this diary. Just one paragraph is all I ask, and then you can get back to computers._**

Ok, but I think you're getting a rum deal. We've been friends since first year, nearly died together a bunch of times, so we're all three of us close. I wanted to see if we might want to be more than friends, so I've been flirting with him a bit. We're all three of us a bit different, but we've been through so much together that we're already close. He really likes Wizard Chess, so I thought it would be a good ploy to spend time one-on-one with him.

Are we good?

**_Perhaps you didn't understand my question. I asked why. Your answer appears to be 'because he's there.' Heaven knows I never understood the concept of love, but even I know there's supposed to be more to it than that._**

You got a paragraph, I get a paragraph. You talked more about the compromises you're forced into than what your own goals are.

**_To exterminate Muggles. Or deprive them of their ability to reason, whichever comes first. Didn't you ever fantasize about getting rid of all the people who could never understand your powers? How fast you are? How clever? Doesn't it _****bore ****_you having to go through life surrounded by lesser species?_**

Everyone has flashes of anger and frustration, but most of us don't think the appropriate response is to indulge it in genocide.

_Hermione began to lift her quill from the paper, but another hand tightened over hers and forced it back down to meet the diary. Were she able to look down, she would have seen the hand holding hers was mottled with black splotches, that swirled and sank like ink falling through water. But another hand had closed around her throat and did not permit her to turn her head away from the page. Below her response, the hand dragged hers into position to write a single word,_

**_Yet._**

"Such a pleasure to meet you, Miss Granger," a soft, cold voice purred in Hermione's ear. "I have been waiting to meet the girl who would interrogate Lord Voldemort for his secrets for some time."

"Shit!"

"Yes, I think that's the correct response."

"How did you-"

"-get out? Dear me, you really don't know what that spell does, do you? This isn't the first time I've been out, Miss Granger. I've been able to leave since the very first time you opened my diary. But you seemed to be doing so well at interrogating me, that I just had to wait and see what you'd come up with next. Who knows? You might be useful. But every night I'd slip out and see what I could learn. The _Daily Prophet_ is very enlightening, you know, and it tells me all sorts of fascinating things. For instance, dear me, Miss Granger, I'm cold, but even I never sent a political opponent to potential rape by centaurs just because they _annoyed _me. And here I thought you were a _Gryffindor_! Ah well. Now the tables have turned, Miss Granger. I have you at my mercy, and _you_ are going to answer _my _questions."

Riddle's hand left hers, and strayed over to the table, where it alighted on her wand. His long, spidery fingers closed on it and Riddle gave another malicious chuckle.

"This is the second Gryffindor's wand I've appropriated in what feels like as many weeks. But it makes no matter, Miss Granger. A wand does not care who wields it, so long as you win it. And I just did win it, Miss Granger. It won't be the last thing of yours I win. I plan to take all the information in that pretty little mind of yours, for one thing...well, all the information you didn't already hand me in your ill-advised attempt to reverse engineer the spell that created that diary. I think I may have learned something already, in fact. You might have done this on Dumbledore's behalf, but he did _not_ put you up to this. If he had, he would have made sure I got someone else's memories, especially considering there are so many of yours that would strengthen a man like me. But enough about me. We've been discussing me for the past three days. It's my turn to hear about you."

"Why should I tell you anything? You're just going to kill me anyway."

"Tsk tsk, Miss Granger, you disappoint me. I may be the most dangerous Dark Wizard of all time, but I am not _unreasonable_. There is no reason you should die. In fact, the only way you will end up dead tonight is if you make the same mistake you made under the Sorting Hat."

"..._What?_"

"If you act like a Gryffindor, Hermione Granger. _Petrificus Totalus!_"


	4. Chapter 4

_Chapter Four_

Riddle straightened up from Hermione's frozen form and gave a quick, amused look around him.

"I assume I don't need to tell you not to scream, Miss Granger," he said pleasantly. "I was Head Boy, and you're a Prefect. We both know where we are, and I'm sure you were thorough enough to require the room to be unplottable and unenterable until you left. I could keep you here for a hundred years and no one would be able to get in. Nevertheless, for the sake of avoiding pointless struggling, I did have to see to it that you couldn't resist while I prepare."

He snapped his fingers and a section of the stone floor raised itself and formed into a bed-sized slab. This done, he turned the wand back onto Hermione.

"_Levicorpus_!"

Her body drifted across the room until it was dropped none-too-gently on the dais.

"_Incarcerous!"_

Ropes sprung from the stone table and snaked up one of her legs. Riddle checked them for sturdiness, then strode to the other side.

"_Incarcerous! _Just in case you have any illusions that you'll be comfortable during this, Miss Granger, or that there are some things I won't do to you - _Incarcerous_ - let me remind you that casting any one of the Unforgivable Curses on a fellow human being earns a life sentence in Azkaban. How many times do you think I've cast one of those on a fellow human being, in my other form? I could not possibly serve out that many life sentences. Hence there is no disincentive whatsoever for me to use them on you here. _Incarcerous!"_

He paused to look down at her, spread eagled on the slab, before sitting down next to her and running one hand slowly from her face down to her blouse. If the Full-Body Bind had allowed it, she would have shivered.

"Don't worry, Miss Granger," Riddle hissed. "You're not the first Gryffindor prefect I've had helpless beneath me this way. In fact, you should be glad I'm taking this much trouble with you over something that's actually important. The others offered to let me do this just so they could avoid losing a few house points. Really quite pathetic. '_Please, Head Boy, I'll do __**anything**_, _just don't dock me for being out after hours. The other Prefects won't be able to look at me straight if I lose that many.'"_

He laughed. "They regretted it afterwards, of course, though I daresay not as much as you will. _Lacero!_"

Her blouse split open. Riddle looked down wryly at the exposed flesh.

"Your robes don't do you justice, Miss Granger. _Finite!_"

Hermione reflexively strained against the ropes, but the spells held her firmly in place. "Just kill me now. You're going to torture me to death no matter what. There's no reason I should do anything to help you. And after enough torture, you won't be able to tell good information from bad."

Riddle laughed - a low, mirthless laugh. "You forget, Miss Granger, that I can use legilimency. However, you are wrong again. If I were going to simply torture you to death for fun, I would not have told you anything about my own exploits. I certainly would not have spoken to you for three days when I could have overpowered you after one. I am interested in you, not simply in what you know. No, we're going to be here for quite some time, Miss Granger. Perhaps not a hundred years, but for you it may feel that way. _Crucio_!"

The magical bindings of the _Incarcerous_ curse had just enough give to prevent Hermione from ripping the skin off her wrists as she bucked and thrashed under Riddle's curse. But simple friction burns would have been a welcome distraction from the waves of agony that washed over her. Before her mind could retreat into unconsciousness or madness, Riddle lifted his wand and the agonizing pain stopped. The relief was so absolute that she could barely feel the bruises on her hips or the ache in her shoulder where she had bucked and thrashed against the stone.

"A little break," Riddle sneered down at her, his face an inch from hers. "You suffer beautifully, but that is not the point of our exercise. Now, you don't want me to do that again, do you, Miss Granger"

Even delayed by the moment or two it took to wipe the tears out of her eyes without the use of her hands, Hermione couldn't muster the strength to do much more than mutter "No, no, no..." for a few moments. But, with a wrenching effort, she managed to raise her head a little and say, "But it doesn't _matter_ what I want. You can hurt me and I can't stop you. There's no point in pretending I have any control over this. You'll torture me and then kill me. I'm not so stupid as to think I can negotiate with you."

"Negotiate? No. But you can make this much less hard on yourself. Just tell me what I want to know. I assure you, I can give you an outcome far preferable to death."

"I assumed you _would_ offer me death. Death and torture are all you do."

"You're confusing me with my older self, Miss Granger. I have not mellowed with age, but I appear to have gotten much less clever. I have a particular idea in mind for what to do with you, but first, I need to know what you know about Harry Potter, about Albus Dumbledore, and how much they helped you work out how to make this work again..."

Riddle turned away to page through the diary, and Hermione relaxed slightly, free of the effort of avoiding his gaze. Without the distraction of keeping track of Riddle, she could feel every bump and bruise of her ordeal. A delicate bracelet of finger-shaped bruises was already blooming on her right wrist, her ankle had scraped against the stones as Riddle threw her down, and there was an insistent, throbbing pain in her left shoulder. Her slightly _wrong_ looking left shoulder. The strain of the Cruciatus curse, coupled with the ropes, had dislocated it.

That meant there was a little more give in the ropes. Hermione strained to stretch her arm up high enough to let the loops of the ropes stretch a little. Whimpering a little, but praying Riddle wouldn't guess that it was anything more than general agony, she slowly slipped her hand through the ropes.

Her arm flopped down on the table, and she hitched it across the stones until she reached the wand Riddle had left by her side. She struggled to pick it up with her numbed fingers and managed to turn it around til the wand tip was pressed against her breastbone. She only had time for one spell.

"Av... Ava... Avada..."

Riddle wheeled round and leaned heavily on her dislocated shoulder. For an instant, there was a glint of fear in his eyes, which rapidly gave way to amusement.

"Don't bother with that, Miss Granger. You won't be able to cast that spell."

He reached down and effortlessly plucked the wand out of her fingers.

"It takes a very specific level of power to cast that spell, even on another person, and committing suicide with it is quite beyond your talents, Miss Granger. That was very much a Gryffindor thing to do, by the way. I'm disappointed. Didn't I tell you that acting like a member of that house would make this worse for you? I would not imagine a girl as clever as you needs to hear a thing twice. Ah well. If you must learn slowly, you must. _Crucio_!"

The shock was less the second time, but that was of little help. And freeing her arm had given Hermione more range to convulse. The freedom of movement might have helped her dodge a hex, but, while Riddle held her under Cruciatus, all her thrashing did was batter her further against the stone, with her useless left arm flopping around as a bludgeon. She was insensitive to all these smaller injuries until Riddle lifted the curse, and she lay sobbing miserably on her side.


	5. Chapter 5

_Chapter 5_

As Hermione sobbed, she was vaguely conscious of Riddle saying something she couldn't hear and a slight amount of pain abating in the shoulder where her free hand had been. Riddle was sitting next to her again now, and his hand was running across her exposed chest, lingering just slightly on one or the other of her breasts. Apparently dissatisfied with the process, he pointed his wand at them and muttered a spell. Hermione's bra sliced neatly in two, and he flipped the two cups off of her exposed chest. Unable to pull away, Hermione just clenched her fists until her nails dug into her palm, trying to drown out the feeling of his touch. Riddle chuckled, and cupped one breast briefly as a slightly lewd smile floated across his face.

"You know, we used to have a game in the Slytherin common room when I was at Hogwarts," he said softly, the smirk still not leaving his face. "We used to see how much punishment the girl who had lost the most points that week for our House could take on one or the other of these. Obviously, we couldn't use the Cruciatus curse, so we had to come up with something more...inventive. The one I'm about to use, for instance, was one of our preferred tools for cutting down the Gryffindor banners in the Great Hall as a prank. But it worked just as well to make a few scared little girls squeal. Let's see if it does that to you. _Lacero!_"

There was a brief hissing noise, and the wand traced a sharp line of pain along the underside of her breast. The skin opened neatly beneath his wand tip, just deep enough for a few drops of blood to well up. The cutting curse was sharper and finer than any physical knife could be. She didn't even have the comfort of feeling her own flesh put up resistance to the knife, her skin just parted naturally in response to Riddle's intention. He drew the wand across her chest once, twice, three times more. Waves of pain and nausea washed over her.

Riddle was talking again. "I could show you some of my other tricks, Miss Granger, but I don't want to spoil the surprise. For now, let us just say that this can get much more unpleasant if you don't tell me what I want to know."

His hand stroked abruptly along the cut, making Hermione flinch even harder. He laughed. "Sensitive, are we? That is good. Very good. Now, Miss Granger, I have been reading the Daily Prophet recently, and I find it astoundingly enlightening. Apparently you and Harry Potter had something of an unpleasant encounter with my current self recently. In the Ministry, in fact. The Department of Mysteries. Now, I realize I have gotten a bit dumber with age, but even my current self seems subtle enough not to brazenly attack the Ministry in person and risk this level of exposure. Which suggests that he - that I - must have been looking for something positively vital. Not only that, but I suspect that you know what it is. So for your first opportunity to avoid pain, Miss Granger, let me ask you, what was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"We were looking for you, or other you, anyway. You were just trying to get Harry out of Hogwarts, since you couldn't get past his protections, so you lured him out, in what was _obviously_ a trap, but he fell for it anyway. But the adults showed up in time and you fled."

"I wanted to extract Potter from Hogwarts?" Riddle said slowly, cruel amusement twisting his lip. "Yes, that does sound like something I should want. But luring Potter out by getting him to go to the _Ministry? _Where there are hundreds of Aurors and thousands of able-bodied wizards who could stop me? Never mind that, the Department of Mysteries, where there are magics I could not reasonably predict or anticipate? You'll have to do better at lying than that, Miss Granger."

She felt the wand trace the lower part of her inner thigh. "Fortunately, I think I have just the right incentive," Riddle breathed. "We used this particular charm on a few unsuspecting Hufflepuffs in the halls just to see how long it would take them to notice they were on fire. I wonder how quickly you'll notice. _Incendio!_"

Hermione threw her head back, so she couldn't see her skin reshaping itself, distorted and bubbling under the flames. Every other sensation faded out, and all she could feel was the pain. Riddle lifted the spell before the damage had scorched through below the skin to muscle, and then, with a wave of his wand, healed her leg completely. He ran his hand over her whole, but spasmodically twitching thigh.

"You now know _exactly_ what that curse feels like, and I can repeat it indefinitely. Would you like me to do so, or are you going to tell me _why_ the Department of Mysteries?"

"It was about why you couldn't kill Harry – why you never manage it!" Hermione spat back.

"That's better!" Riddle smiled. "But why would I need Potter to find that out? Surely one or another of my associates could break into the Department of Mysteries without my making the journey in person, and surely without Potter himself being present. In fact, that latter part seems rather more of a hindrance, unless I needed him specifically. No, Miss Granger, I think you are still lying to me. But fortunately, I don't have to guess. I can be sure. And I have just the spell to do it. This might not be so painful as the last few spells, but I think you'll see it's bloody useful."

He leaned into her face, cupping it and pulling it forward so that his eyes were staring directly into hers. She closed them hastily, but not quickly enough. His voice had already spat out the spell.

"_Legilimens!"_

Hermione could feel Riddle's mind pushing at hers, racing down the black stone hallways of the Department of Mysteries. Before he could push her all the way to the Hall of Prophecy, she wrenched a hold of the memory. Holding firmly to her true image of the corridor, she pictured it branching and twinning. _Twice one is two. Twice two is four. Twice four is eight_. She held on to the image of bifurcating hallways. _Twice eight is sixteen. Twice sixteen is thirty-two. Twice thirty-two is sixty-four. Twice sixty-four is..._

"128," said Riddle. "Twice 128 is 256. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries? Twice 256 is 512. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Snape!" Hermione yelped. "It was to do with Professor Snape. He did something... a potion... It protected Harry. I don't know exactly - all the fighting - we didn't make it to the Archives"

"Liar. Twice 512 is 1024. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Please, please! It's the truth! It was Snape's information!"

A pause. "Vague, but true. Good. What does Snape know, and what does it have to do with what I was looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"I'm telling the truth! When torturers push past what their subjects know, they just force people to invent things to stop the pain. What would you like me to make up about what Snape knows?"

"Twice 1024 is 2048. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"Snape knew you were targeting Harry and his family and he made some kind of potion that helped protect them."

"I know that's not true already, Miss Granger. Your mind isn't well defended enough to make that lie succeed. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"I _know _you know it's a lie. I _told _you it would be a lie. You're asking me questions I don't know!"

"That's also a lie. You know _something. _Twice 2048 is 4096. What was I looking for in the Department of Mysteries?"

"I don't know! I can make more things up or I can tell you twice 4096 is 8192."

The spell broke.


	6. Chapter 6

_Chapter 6_

As Riddle's mind fell back, the room swam back into view. The intense focus of his legilimency had overshadowed Hermione's aches and fear. His direct assault on her mind gave her something to fight, and she didn't have a way to actively oppose the pain of the cuts or the remembered intensity of the burn or the humiliation of lying exposed under Riddle's gaze. Her anger had lost its outlet, and a whimper of frustration escaped her lips before she had time to bite it back. She forced her gaze back to Riddle, still avoiding his eyes, trying to muster the strength to glare.

But Riddle wasn't looking at her with anger. His posture was relaxed, and the soft smile on his lips had relaxed from a smirk into something that looked like genuine pleasure. He was still seated next to her bound body, and he lightly drew one finger down absently from her neck to her sternum.

"You know more than you are letting on, Miss Granger, that is certain," Riddle said slowly. "However...you also present me with a unique conundrum. One I am singularly unused to. Would you like to know what it is?"

"What is it?"

"You do not bore me. In fact, you have not bored me since you performed that singularly ill-advised spell to awaken my diary. At first, I thought it was simply the after-effect of the spell, or some sort of strange feeling of gratitude to you for having breathed life back into me, but now I see I was wrong. You have resisted my attempts to probe your mind, and even reasserted control over the process once I had gained the upper hand. I grant you that this form of me is only 17, but there are grown witches and wizards who could not have stood before my assault, even at 17. Certainly, my long-lost uncle, who was himself pureblooded and a fool for all that, could not. And yet here you, a muggle-born witch and yet still the brightest witch of your age, if your memories are to be believed, sit, defying my powers and trying to outwit me even as you beg for death. You know, Miss Granger, you remind me of...well, me, your unfortunate choice of house notwithstanding."

"That's ridiculous!"

"Oh, but you're wrong, Miss Granger," Riddle said. "I know you to be wrong. Shall I tell you how? Why not? Miss Granger, when you asked me about the spell you...reverse engineered to awaken me, I only dropped hints at how dark it was. Dumbledore would not allow the process behind that spell to be taught at his school for a reason. It is the darkest magic there is. You see, Miss Granger, my diary is a kind of object that stores a piece of someone's soul for safekeeping. In order to reawaken it, a piece of someone _else's_ soul had to be substituted - sacrificed, if you will - to reawaken the previous inhabitant.

"Very few witches or wizards have undertaken such a process, and I imagine you can see why. Sacrificing a piece of your soul so that another might be protected from death? It's quite a sacrifice to make. In fact-" His long finger stroked her cheekbone softly, "-most of them were lovers who consummated their love over the corpses of enemies. But of course, not knowing that, you couldn't have been expected to realize what the spell would do to you, or what it would give me."

Riddle was now leaning so close to Hermione that she couldn't have met his eyes even if she had wanted to. His cheek was pressed against hers, and his lips almost grazed her ears as he continued speaking softly.

"You handed me the part of your soul best suited to reawaken me, Hermione Granger,

"You poured everything you have in common with me - with Lord Voldemort - into the diary. If another wizard had done that, it might not have been enough to allow me to even write back at first, much less step out of the diary, but with you...with you, there was so _much_ to nourish me.

"Your impatience, frustration and, yes, even hatred for those who are inferior to you. Your stubbornness. Your intellect. Everything Slytherin about you. You know I am the last living descendant of Salazar Slytherin, I presume? Yes, of course you do, Potter will have told you. Well, you should know that my great ancestor prized certain qualities in his handpicked students, Miss Granger, and not just ambition or cunning or that other nonsense the Sorting Hat spits out every year. No, my ancestor also prized resourcefulness, and what else would a girl have who decided to reverse engineer a dark spell just so she could try and interrogate closely guarded secrets out of the most dangerous dark wizard of the modern age? He prized determination, and what else would be necessary to keep the project going once you found yourself frustrated by the difficulty of the task at every turn? Why, Slytherin even prized courage of a sort - not Gryffindor's brand of foolhardiness warmed over, but the absence of fear for the consequences that come with greatness. And, of course, Slytherin prized a certain disregard for the rules, and my, my, I wonder how many points Dumbledore would take away from someone who practiced a brand of magic so dark he banned it even from the Restricted Section, all so that she could share _my _company?"

Riddle's chuckled echoed softly in Hermione's ear. He pulled her chin sideways so that she was staring directly into his eyes.

"You really should have been in my house, Hermione Granger," Riddle said, almost sadly. "You certainly would have found it more intellectually stimulating than what you're forced to endure now. Now, here is a question that you needn't fear giving me an advantage. Where did the Sorting hat _want _to put you? It can't have been Gryffindor, because I seem to remember you asking it to put you there. Where was it? Not Hufflepuff?"

"Ravenclaw." Hermione responded quickly. "But I didn't want to _just_ do research and not put it to use. The Hat put me in Gryffindor because I wanted to do _good!_"

"Ravenclaw. Yes, that would be the hat's first choice for you, wouldn't it? But you asked it to put you in Gryffindor. That is not something that typically happens when the hat's thought of something on its own. Come now, Miss Granger, I do have that memory. What I do not have is an explanation for what I'm seeing. It offered you Slytherin, didn't it?"

Hermione tried to turn away, but before she could do more than flinch, her eyes could turn away completely, Riddle had seized her chin and tightened his grasp, so that no matter how hard she struggled, his vice-like grip kept her staring into his eyes.

"Yes, it mentioned Slytherin. And I said _no!_ I _chose_ Gryffindor. That's what matters – obviously people can turn their talents to anything, and I _choose_ to be good."

Riddle laughed mirthlessly. "_You_ choose to be good? You, the girl whose uncontrolled magic made her muggle classmates scream silently in horror for hours on end because they annoyed her? You, who lured a woman to almost certain rape and possible death just to get her out of the way for your friend? You, who cast a spell so dark it's banned from Hogwarts in order to resurrect the most powerful Dark wizard ever known, without so much as giving a damn about the risks, because you want the glory of forcing his secrets out of him? You, who scarred a girl for life for snitching on your secret club?

"I will admit, I know something about enforcing loyalty within an organization, Miss Granger, but I never thought of a spell like the one you used on Miss Edgecombe. You _must _tell me how it's done. But we will get to that later, as I'm not finished with all the ways you've been 'choosing' to be good. For on top of all of those, you're also the girl who's been steadily manipulating a boy she has a crush on for years by making him believe falsehoods about his intelligence, his charm and his skill at wizard chess. If you were a Slytherin, you'd at least have an excuse to be manipulating the dimwitted purebloods to do your will. I certainly did. Then again-" His lips quirked up as he paused, "-I only flattered the purebloods I needed to succeed. I never _fucked_ one."

Hermione spat at Riddle. His smile curdled.

"You're going to regret that, Miss Granger. _Crucio!_"

This time the agony started directly under the tip of his wand, just under her navel. The pain started as a dull ache and kept rising and sharpening. As the center of the pain intensified, the leading edge of the ache began to spread. It reached her navel, her hips, and fell through to the small of her back. And the pain grew everywhere it went, but always just below the intensity that would have blocked out her awareness of the creeping dull soreness—now moving to thighs and her lower-most ribs—and the anticipation of agony to come. She was screaming before the outermost edge of the pain had made it as far as her knees. Riddle waited to lift the spell until the fire had crested over her breasts and began to send tendrils across her neck.

"Don't look so miserable, Miss Granger," Riddle said lightly, as she came back to herself. "Many Gryffindor girls would have given anything to be where you are once upon a time. Why, the Head Girl of my time - your very Head of House, Minerva McGonagall - would probably hate you just a little for having this experience instead of her.

"Now-" his voice turned icy, "-let us be honest with each other. Choosing Gryffindor under the hat is not the same as choosing 'good' at every other turning in the road. Your choices have been the choices of my house. So tell me truthfully, why not Slytherin?"

"Because they want to _destroy_. And they're petty. Maybe as a first year, I was mostly just responding to the fact that everyone said that Slytherin was _bad_, but I've spent five years with them, and they may be ambitious, but the things they aspire to are _boring_! They want to be able to hurt people, which is much simpler and less interesting than figuring out how to help or fix them. Look at older you!"

"And your response to this is to run to _Gryffindor_?" Riddle snarled. He paused for a few seconds, before his voice returned to its softer, sardonic tone. "Do you mean to tell me that not once, while sitting under the Sorting Hat, did it cross your mind that you put your ambition to do good toward Slytherin itself? A girl like you, not thinking what it would be to be the _one good Slytherin_? The _anti-Voldemort_? Everything older me is _not? _'There goes Hermione Granger,' people would say, 'she's not like the rest of them. _She _cares about doing the right thing. She's learning to be great so that she can be good. But no, no, you chose Gryffindor. Gryffindor, of all places, the place where even the chance to be boring is beaten out of you with Beaters' bats! You never did answer me in the diary when I asked you this, Miss Granger, but why Ronald Weasley?"

"All right, so he's not the smartest boy in the year. But there are a lot of things that we've done together, that only the three of us know about, that we can't talk to anyone else about. There is some kind of bond, and I thought it would be worth checking if it could or should be a romantic one."

Riddle let out a derisive laugh. "Yes, of course, all very sensible, but Ronald Weasley? Surely our mutual friend Mr. Potter is the more interesting alternative. But then, I suppose he's gone and gotten himself wrapped up with our other mutual friend, Miss Ginny Weasley, now hasn't he? Dear me, you Gryffindors _do _have a weakness for Quidditch stars."

Riddle began idly whistling a tune, smiling at Hermione's flinch, and starting to sing the lyrics softly and cruelly.

"Weasley is our King," Riddle sang, low and mocking, "Weasley is our King. He always lets the Quaffle in. Weasley is our King-Well, someone seems to be always letting _him_ in, anyway. But I suppose this topic is boring you, isn't it? You could always save me the trouble, though, Miss Granger. You could tell me what I was looking for in the Department of Mysteries."

"No. It was valuable enough for old you to come in person, so it must be valuable to now you, and I don't want either of you to know it."

Riddle became still for a moment, and then smiled down fondly at her. "Valid point, Miss Granger," he said. "Yes, I did come in person, didn't I? Not only that, but I needed Harry Potter there as well, in spite of the fact that I could have easily stolen whatever it was in person."

"You wanted to _kill_ Harry," Hermione spit back. "It's stupidly important to current you to do it personally. So of course you both had to be there!"

"But as we established earlier, I could have lured him anywhere with a trap if I wanted that. I chose one of the most heavily guarded parts of the Ministry, ergo, there must have been something there I wanted. Charming attempt at misdirection, Miss Granger, but you are still the Gryffindor in this conversation. Now, if I came in person, then it must be something that I alone could retrieve. But of course, if it were only me, then removing it would expose my having returned, which I assume even current day me would have wanted to avoid. So why not attract a decoy to retrieve it? Perhaps the only other person who could. But what sort of object could only be retrieved by two people? Why, only..."

Riddle's mouth quirked up into a leering smile. "The record of a prophecy. Of course. Thank you, Miss Granger, you were _most_ helpful. As a reward, I think I will let you leave that stone slab. _Imperio!_"


	7. Chapter 7

_Chapter 7_

After looking Hermione over, to make sure that she had been pulled under by the Imperius curse, Riddle vanished the ropes that held her to the stone. He waved his wand, and her body sat up and placed its feet on the floor. As she stood, the two halves of her bra fell to the floor. Her step stuttered, and Riddle renewed the curse, and forced her to shrug her shoulders, so the blouse slid down her arms and joined the ruined bra on the floor. She could feel the fabric brushing against her arms, and even its last touch as it passed over her fingertips, but she was powerless to close her hand. It was as though she existed only at the level of sensation – able to receive data from hand or eye or ear, but unable to inhabit any part of her body to direct it.

And still her legs walked on, until she was standing with her back against a wall.

"It occurs to me that keeping you stuck on that slab was keeping us from having a true face to face talk, Miss Granger," Riddle said pleasantly. "That, and diminishing my access to the entire back of your body. Now, much as I find your bosom useful for the purposes of torture, it strikes me that it really is entirely unfair to your other...assets to leave them neglected. Fortunately, I think this position will remedy both problems. But first, there is an obstacle to remove. _Lacero_."

There was no pain, but Hermione's skirt split neatly at the seam and fell away without resistance. Riddle brushed his fingers lightly over the exposed part of her body for a brief moment, then waved her wand and ropes appeared from the rafters above the wall where she was standing. Riddle checked the ropes, then turned back to her.

"Now for the logistical concerns," Riddle said idly. "Raise your left arm, Miss Granger."

Another twitch of his wand, and her left arm rose slowly, as though through water, and began threading itself through the loops of the hanging rope.

"Thank you, Miss Granger," Riddle said softly, tightening the restraints with his wand. "And the other arm, if you would?" He repeated the process on the other side, and slipped a finger into the binds around her wrist, to check the tightness of the knots. He let his finger glide lightly down her bare arm, across her clavicle, and up her neck until it rested right under her chin.

"I can't expect this will work, but…" Hermione felt her mouth open, and heard a voice echo in her head – _Tell me what the prophecy said!_ By the time she noticed she was biting her lip and shaking her head violently, she realized the spell had broken.

"Pity," said Riddle lazily, "but I would have been a little disappointed in you, Miss Granger, if you hadn't been able to muster the will to resist that. Of course, a few bouts of the Cruciatus curse might drain your resistance." He moved his wand directly over her heart. "Would you like me to test the hypothesis? _Cruc—_"

"No, no, please, please don't!"

"I'm listening, Miss Granger. Do you have something to tell me?"

"Just that it would still be stupid and useless for you to torture me. I _do_ know what the prophecy said, you're right, but that's a complicated, detailed piece of information, not a simple yes or no answer. You won't be able to hone in on the content just by playing evil sadist twenty questions. And even if I tell you something, it'll be very hard to tell if I've been precise _enough_ even if I'm not lying. And push me past the true details out of desperation, and you'll get extraneous information that will end up confusing you.

"It's not even np-hard – oh, you wouldn't know that phrase. What I mean is that the information is hard to get, and there's no easy way to check whether it's accurate once you've got it. It's not like looking for a puzzle piece in a mess, but having an easy way to check whether it fits. You won't _know_ whether the information I give you is good, though I grant I'll probably say _something_. So you can torture me, but do me the courtesy of admitting you're doing it because you want to hurt me, not because you want to know the prophecy."

Riddle considered. "A fair point, Miss Granger, and one I daresay my older self would fail to recognize. Presumably, you want some sort of incentive to talk, then. Very well. I had hoped to raise this prospect later, but since you are plainly too clever to be manipulated with pain alone, let me place a few of my cards on the table."

Riddle took a breath, pausing for a few seconds to consider Hermione before continuing. "As I said earlier, you do not bore me, Miss Granger. In fact, not only do you not bore me, but I should be marginally sorry to see you die, simply because it would be such a tragic waste of potential. So here is my proposal: You need not die in the Room of Requirement. In fact, you need not suffer any more at all. I had told you that you should have been in my house, and I meant it, your...less than perfect blood notwithstanding. But then, I suppose we both know what it is like to have less-than-perfect parentage, don't we, Miss Granger?"

A bitter smile twisted Riddle's lips. "Not only that, but many who have served me know the same feeling. Your Potions professor, for instance, Snape, I think you said his name was?"

"Yes," said Hermione, unsure where this was going. "Professor Snape."

"Snape," said Riddle. "Very well. He was one of mine once, wasn't he? You know what I find interesting about that?"

"What?"

"There is no old wizard family named Snape. In fact, I cannot recall a single Snape ever passing through Hogwarts before this one, and believe me, I learned quite a deal about the various wizarding dynasties that put their children through this school as a rite of passage. This 'Snape' person has no connection to any of them of which I am aware. Yet he not only was in my house, but he joined the...Death Eaters, is that what I call them these days?"

Hermione nodded and Riddle's smile broadened.

"Strange, don't you think, for a movement that you and I both know was supposed to be about pureblooded supremacy to accept someone who was, at best, a half-blooded wizard? What do you suppose that shows about what present day me looks for in his followers?"

"What?" Hermione was still lost.

"Loyalty to wizards over muggles, Miss Granger. More than blood, that is what I always intended to sort for among my followers. Spilling any magical blood, while necessary, always struck me as a tragic waste, and if I could stop it, I would. Spilling the blood of a witch as talented as yourself, on the other hand...well, that would be close to sacrilege. So here is my proposal, Miss Granger: You can end the torture right here if you agree to become a Death Eater yourself. Heaven knows you have scant reason to refuse. Muggles have always bored you at best, and made you feel unwanted and feared at worst. Even your own parents are frightened of you. Why hold onto that alien, inferior race? Join me, and you can study the art of magic - all magic, not just what Dumbledore sees fit to spoon feed you - while holding loyalty to nothing but the powers you were born with, and have the right to use to their fullest. If I am the most powerful Dark wizard of all time, I can teach you to be the most powerful, the most knowledgeable, the most feared and the most admired Dark witch. It all depends on you, Miss Granger. What do you say?"

"Absolutely not. Not having magic isn't the only way people aren't boring. My loyalty is to the people who are good and creative, and you're asking me to stand against Shakespeare and Newton and Plato. And for who? The _Malfoys_? They've got one kind of power, because they can do magic and a second kind, because they have money, but there's nothing more interesting about them than a person with a sledgehammer. I don't see anything intrinsically valuable about them.

"But I do have something you want, and you _can_ offer me a way to get out of this room." She paused, and drew herself up before going on. "We can make an Unbreakable Vow. I'll tell you everything I know about the prophecy – no tricks, no elisions – and you" she broke off, swallowed and then spoke again, "you Vow to kill me once I finish explaining. You get the one piece of information you want most, in exchange for me not giving you anything else and not being tortured anymore."

Riddle raised his eyebrows. "Information for death?" he said. "It's a disgracefully Gryffindor deal to offer, Miss Granger, and one I would not like to take. Still, perhaps information for death is an acceptable deal..."

He suddenly smiled. "Yes, I think it is. However, I have no plans of offering you _your _death in exchange for that information. Rather, I have one that I think you will find more palatable. The death of someone who I know for a fact you would like to be dead, and who I find irritating on so many levels it would be difficult to list them all. You are wondering who it is, of course, and I think I can give you a clue."

His smile widened. "Tell me, Miss Granger, in your computers, when two parallel processes are working at once, and one is demonstrably superior to the other at doing the same thing, why would there be a need to run them both?"


	8. Chapter 8

_Chapter 8_

"Are you saying… are you saying you'll swear to kill the old version of you if I tell you the prophecy?"

Riddle's smile widened. "Suppose I was, Miss Granger," he said. "Would you be amenable to such a proposal?"

"Give me a moment to think. I'm not sure you or now you wouldn't do this anyway. And of the two of you, you seem a little more reasonable or stable, which means you're more dangerous, but your danger is more likely to be purposefully directed…" she trailed off in thought, paused, and relaxed slightly.

"All right. If you Vow that you will kill your older self before thirty days have passed – normal 24-hour Earth days! As experienced subjectively by a random Muggle in, say Bolivia, chosen by me and not known to you, not gameable by timeturners or slowing your own metabolism or anything – I'll Vow to tell you the complete prophecy, immediately, truly, and with any other appropriate safeguard conditions you suggest."

Riddle chuckled. "Thirty days? I may be the most powerful dark wizard of my age, Miss Granger, but I am not a God. Albus Dumbledore has failed to kill my older self for years - granted, he is constrained by particular quaint moral constraints which do not apply to me, but still, the fact remains that my older self is hard to kill, despite his, or my, many flaws. And then there is the small matter of severing his connection to all the many artifacts he and I created to prevent our deaths, first. After all, if he were still connected, I would not truly kill him, but only slow him down. No, Miss Granger, that cannot be done in a matter of 30 days. You must give me at least half a year to do it."

She smiled. "Don't sell yourself short. Sixty days, all other conditions remain the same."

"Do I need to remind you that you are in no position to bargain?" Riddle's voice hardened. "Six months to destroy his body, and three more to eliminate the magic tethering him to this world. I should add that you may find the extra time with the two of us distracted by each other to be more pleasant than having the more dangerous of the two of us running free, unopposed."

Hermione took a shuddery breath. "All right."

Riddle raised his wand and the bindings on one of Hermione's arms vanished. He held out his hand to her, and she, knowing what would have to come next, took it in hers. His long, spidery fingers curled around her hand with a surprising firmness, and he began to draw the incantation around their joined hands. Then, he began to wave the wand through the air, conjuring words.

"You first, Miss Granger," he said softly. "Repeat what is written."

Hermione sucked in her breath and began to speak. "I, Hermione Jane Granger-"

"Jean," said Riddle, shaking his head in chastisement. "I have your memories, Miss Granger. I know your middle name. Start again."

Hermione glared at him, but started over, reading the words as they emerged from his wand. "I, Hermione Jean Granger, do vow that I will tell the wizard named Tom Marvolo Riddle, to the best of my ability, the words of the prophecy concerning him and Harry Potter which the wizard called Lord Voldemort attempted to steal from the Ministry of Magic, and that I will consciously withhold no details of the prophecy, nor evade any questions posed by Tom Marvolo Riddle on the subject of the prophecy over the course of the next 24 hours. This I vow."

Riddle smiled. "Good. Now me."

He cleared his throat and began to speak. "I, Tom Marvolo Riddle, alias Lord Voldemort, do vow that in the space of six months I will destroy the body of the wizard styling himself Lord Voldemort, and that I will untether the piece of that wizard's soul that resided in that body from the earth in the space of nine months, both measured from this moment in regular 24 hours days as experienced by an average Muggle, to be chosen at Hermione Jean Granger's discretion, without the use of Time Turners or slowing of metabolism. This I vow."


	9. Chapter 9

_Chapter 9_

The light twined around their hands pulsed and then vanished.

"Now, Miss Granger," Riddle said pleasantly, "enlighten me."

Hermione used her free hand to rub her bound wrist, "All right. This is exactly what I remember: '_The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches, born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies, and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives._'

"I have a pretty good memory, and I think that's word-perfect, but if you want to verify that with legilimency _on only that memory_, I won't put up resistance."

Riddle looked pensive, then gave her a piercing look. "Power the Dark Lord knows not. What do you suppose that means, Miss Granger?"

"In all honesty, we haven't figured it out." She smiled thinly. "Though I guess one difference between Harry and you is that his soul isn't spread out much too thin - 'like butter over too much bread.'"

Riddle raised one eyebrow. "Tolkien, Miss Granger? Surely you can do better than a man who mistook Dementors for suitable emissaries of his fictional Dark Lord? Heavens, they can barely speak intelligibly. But you really don't know what that section of the prophecy means, do you?"

He cupped her face in his hand. "Do you?"

"I don't" she said firmly. "And I'm glad I don't. I wouldn't have made the deal if I thought the information was _critically_ important or useful."

"That is good," said Riddle, "because having told me all you know about the prophecy, you have managed to avoid getting what you want. Dear me, Miss Granger, did no one tell you how an Unbreakable Vow works? If you break it-" He smiled cruelly, "-you die."

Her eyes widened, and she beat her free hand against the wall. "Stupid, stupid, _stupid_! I should have changed a word or added something! _Damnit!_"

"Oh, don't be too upset, Miss Granger," Riddle said smoothly. "This way, you enjoy the pleasure of my company for so much longer. And there is so much more I want to know. For instance, how did you manage to make that lovely spell that so traumatized Miss Edgecombe? I can guess, of course, but I would rather hear it from you."

"You want to know _that_? Why? It was fairly simple. I mean, I spent a while cloaking the hex so that people wouldn't notice it on the sign-up sheet, but no one even _checked!_"

"Nevertheless, it was a very clever move, and one that I already told you I failed to use on my Death Eaters. That strikes me as a critical error. How is it done?"

Hermione tugged absently on her bound arm. "It was pretty simple. Reverse engineering a pre-existing spell, just like on your diary. I..." she hesitated for just a moment. "I just altered some of the cosmetic spells the Gryffindor girls use so they'd have the opposite effect."

"Liar," Riddle breathed. "Cosmetic spells alone could not trigger in response to someone betraying you. You would need a much stronger charm for that. Dear me, we seem to be at an impasse again. I suppose I could wrench it out of you using Legilimency, but I've already used that trick, and your resistance is up."

He suddenly smiled. "That is, unless you could be induced to forget that I had done Legilimency on you. Of course, how silly of me. Nothing simpler. _Obliviate!_"

A few seconds passed. "So, Miss Granger," said Riddle, "do you recall me ever trying to read your mind?"

Hermione's eyes widened with the strain of trying to recall. "I know you _did_, I can remember you talking about it, including saying you would make me forget. And I remember it didn't work, so presumably even if you repeat it, you expect the same thing to happen..." her voice was getting faster and more strained, "but I can't remember what happened _while_ you were doing it. And that's not one of the standard side effects, right? So you _did_ remove my memory."

She was leaning forward, stretched out as far as the rope around her wrist would permit her and was faintly vibrating with tension.

"Did you take anything else? Tell me, _please_! I can work out most of what must have happened, because I wouldn't have offered to let you use legilimency about the prophecy without resistance unless I _could_ resist, but I don't know what else you might have removed, or what other pointers to that data you could have wiped. Please, _please_ tell me, did you take anything else?"

"You are not the one asking questions, Miss Granger," Riddle said calmly, as though explaining something to a slow child. "However, I will answer you this once. I did not take anything else..._yet_. But your mind has so much in it that _could_ be forgotten that I rather think we could be here for a while if you keep resisting me. It might take me hours to just get through what you learned in first year...speaking of, where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar? _Obliviate_."

"I don't _know_!" She was rigid with horror. "I can look that up again if you don't kill me, but I could forget what I need to restore..." her eyes went wide. "Oh shit shit shit."

"How is that spell done?" Riddle asked, malicious amusement infecting every syllable of his voice. "Answer me or I blot out the memory of all the titles of the best books on antidotes in the Hogwarts library."

"But if I let this threat work, I'll have to tell you _anything_," Hermione squealed, throwing her hand uselessly in between his wand and her body. "And if at some point you get to the point where it's really important I not tell you anything, then you'll _still_ wipe everything out, but I'll have also told you everything you could get out of me before that breaking point. It's better for me to tell you nothing now, and precommit to it, so the threat won't work."

"A bezoar is a stone taken from the stomach of a goat that will save you from most poisons," Riddle said. "I can keep erasing that, and anything else you wish you'd known, indefinitely. That is, if I believed you could stand the idea of losing every ounce of magical knowledge you've taken so long to amass. Which I don't. _Obliv-_"

"_NO!_" Hermione jacknifed over. "No, no, _please_, please, please..."

"Something you want to tell me, Miss Granger?"

"It was based on the _Fidelius_ charm!" The words came out of her mouth as fast and as reflexively as she had tried to move out of the path of the charm. "It's the truth this time, _please_, believe me."

"How exactly did you modify the _Fidelius_ charm?" Riddle asked, not missing a beat. "Unless you'd rather tell me..." he turned his wand toward her and smiled again, "...the difference between Monkshood and Wolfsbane?"

Hermione let out a strangled scream.

"Don't bother screaming, Miss Granger, no one can hear you," Riddle said amicably. "Well?"

Her breath was ragged, and Hermione struggled to force out her next words. "Is there anything I can offer you that would make you kill me? Anything at all? Any other bargain you might make?"

"No," said Riddle. "_Obliv_-"

"I corrupted it! The _Fidelius_ draws it's power from the _willing_ sacrifice of the person sealed. They _freely _choose to give up the ability to choose to tell someone the secret they're Keeping. But I ran it the other way round. They could still tell, but I'd powered the spell with something they'd given to me _unwittingly_ and _unwillingly_. So, then, if they broke the bond, I had a hold over them, and there was a betrayal to match theirs and they couldn't stop me because they hadn't put up any defenses or bothered to check-"

"And the modified incantation?" Riddle asked sharply.

"_Fidelius fictus_." She sagged against the wall.


	10. Chapter 10

_Chapter 10_

"Thank you, Miss Granger," said Riddle kindly. "Most ingenious, and the sort of thing that I daresay I _should _have come up with at Hogwarts, and would have rewarded my friends handsomely for working out. Of course, it requires you to corrupt one of the lightest spells into something exceedingly dark, unpleasant and unethical, not to mention damaging, but I'm sure the students who were fooled by your trick deserved it, didn't they?"

He forced her to look up into his cold, blue eyes. "Didn't they, Miss Granger?"

"It was _dumb_ of them to not even think to check," she spat back. "Thirty people in a room and no one even wavered. I guess we should have trained that along with countercurses."

"Yes, you really ought to have trained them to be distrustful, suspicious, and ruthless, oughtn't you, Miss Granger? Dear me, it's almost as if them not being Slytherins was a personal affront to you."

"That's not what I _meant_!"

"But it is what you _said_," Riddle chuckled. "And you're _right_, Miss Granger. If they're going to run around trusting authority figures, they would be easy prey to me and my followers. You know as well as I do that my followers have infiltrated the Ministry, and all sorts of other institutions that your little friends would expect to be safe from my influence. You simply proved what was obvious from the beginning. Your little army should have been helpless against my older self. It's only because he has gotten so much stupider that you or anyone in your little expedition is still alive."

"His _tactics_ may be much stupider than yours, but you both still have dumb _strategy_." It was easier for Hermione to be angry than afraid. "You say you're afraid of the atom bomb - I am too! - but wiping out Muggles is a short-term and short-sighted solution. You could just transfigure all the firing mechanisms so they _seemed_ like they were working and would never ever fire. You're immortal, you have _the rest of time_ to come up with a better idea. Trying to solve a problem quickly and permanently isn't a sign of strength, it's evidence of fear!

"Wizards think the solution to anything is just to reshape it by pure _will_ and power. The Malfoys use money and tradition, and you don't think that gives them any special _authority_, it just makes them _useful_ for your to manipulate. How are you any different, just because you're using pure power and a bit of creativity?"

"Transfiguration can be undone, Miss Granger," Riddle said. "And muggles would surely notice if the bit of the map they targeted with their weapons were to remain completely unscathed. And if I wait, who knows what else they will come up with? The clumsy weapons they had when I was at Hogwarts must have improved with time, and surely, they have more of them now than they did then. When would you have me wait until, Miss Granger? Until one of them accidentally decides to go spelunking in the 'abandoned ruin' that is Hogwarts and emerges, warning the others? Until a Squib is listened to about the existence of an alternate world right next to theirs? Until one of their Presidents or Prime Ministers decides it would do wonders for his political image to out us and destroy us? Until one of their leaders gets elected on the _promise_ to destroy us?"

Riddle was leaning in very close to her, and his voice was getting steadily more accusatory with every sentence. "You ask how I am different from the Malfoys. The Malfoys rely on false sources of power to back up their claims, Miss Granger. The Malfoys think tradition and money are sustainable as sources of power. They are _not_. Magic is the only power worth having. Even the wealthiest, most traditionally respected wizard can be dominated with the Imperius curse at the drop of a hat. The most powerful wizard, on the other hand, would be able to survive even a nuclear blast in _some form_ and come back to exact his revenge. The muggles have one great advantage, and only one, and that is the power of numbers. There are too many for us to Imperius all their political leaders, all their scientists, all their engineers, all their journalists. Even if we wanted to, we should not have to spend all our time as a race babysitting cursed animals. Nor could we only kill the dangerous ones. That would be too suspicious, and also impractical. The only option is to either rob them of sentience as a race completely, or eradicate them-"

"You're trying to have it both ways!" Hermione cut in. "It _can't_ be true that magic is the only power worth having _and_ that muggles pose such a serious threat that the only way we wizards can sleep safely in our beds at night is if we _lobotomize_ the majority of the human race. They must have some kind of power that _interests_ you, if it's potent enough to _threaten _you!"

"I know this diary has made me appear to be just a year older than you, Miss Granger," Riddle said coldly. "But you have not seen the things I had seen even at this age. I know what muggles are capable of. I lived through it. If you know anything of what I saw - the senseless wars, bombings, mass killings with no discernible purpose - you probably only read about it. Yes, the muggles have a power I fear - their scientific knowledge. However, it is a power they are demonstrably incapable of applying responsibly. I do not wish to wipe out their knowledge, but I do not intend to let creatures like them keep it. Would you trust magic to a race made up almost entirely of Crabbes, Goyles and Ron Weasleys, Miss Granger?"

"What's your favorite play by Shakespeare?"

Riddle blinked for a few seconds. "What?"

"Shakespeare. You were raised in the Muggle world. You're smart. You read him. Which play is your favorite?"

Riddle raised his eyebrows and considered Hermione for a few seconds. "Yes, I read him," he said simply. "As to my favorite play...can't you guess, Miss Granger?"

"Richard III?"

Riddle laughed and shook his head. Then, extending a hand toward Hermione, he stroked lightly along her cheek and moved closer.

"Hath not a Jew eyes?" He began softly, his voice suddenly taking on a subtle hard edge. "Hath not a Jew hands? Senses? Affections? Dimensions? Passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?"

He was not staring right into her eyes, their faces and inch apart. "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

He leaned in, his mouth once again brushing her ear. "And if you wrong us, shall we not _revenge_?"

"And you're _destroying_ that. You're still standing with the Crabbes, Goyles, and Malfoys against Shakespeare, Leibniz, and everyone else. You're standing against me and you-"

Riddle slapped her. Hard. "Never associate me with them, Miss Granger. Never. The loss of Shakespeare, Leibniz and every other bloody member of their race who has produced something halfway beautiful is an acceptable cost to avoid more of what they seem to love to make so much. You attack me for supporting Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, and to be sure, if I had my way, Crabbe and Goyle at least would never be born with that talent, but they are. And because of that, Crabbe and Goyle are superior to even the most brilliant Muggle, Miss Granger."

"_What?_"

"What do you think it is that sets a wizard and a muggle apart, Miss Granger?" The hard edge was now very noticeable in Riddle's voice.

"Magic, obviously. But it's just one more domain of skills-"

"Wrong," Riddle snarled. "Magic is more than another suite of skills you can take classes in, Miss Granger. Magic is the difference between a free human being and a slave. Muggles are _slaves_. Permanent, irrevocable _slaves_. And not just to each other, though that is a frequent fact. They are slaves to reality. Muggles may build monstrous machines that enable them to approximate flight, but they will never know what it is to actually do it. They will never feel the wind in their face, the ground slipping away beneath them, nor anything else, because they are slaves to the laws of gravity. Muggles may be able to extend their lives, but they will never devise something that can save their souls in the event that their bodies are destroyed, even in a truncated form. We wizards may learn of these laws of nature, as they call them, but our magic can break those laws. And because it can break those laws, it renders us masters of nature. The very thing that muggles can never be, Miss Granger. The very thing that makes you and I, and yes, even Crabbe and Goyle _Gods_compared to Shakespeare, Mozart, or any other muggle."

"That's ridiculous. Crabbe and Goyle, and most pureblood wizards in fact, don't even understand there _are_ laws to be broken! What good is mastery if you don't understand that you're exploiting it? They're like children, and they don't think clearly, because they don't understand the rules well enough to break them cleverly or efficiently."

"Dear, dear, Miss Granger, and you were lecturing me on Shakespeare?" Riddle said, a little sardonic indulgence creeping back into his voice. "Clearly you have forgotten one of the most important lines. 'As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods. They kill us for their sport.' Those wanton boys are still Gods, Miss Granger. Stupid Gods, yes, but Gods. Humans do not lose their dominance over ants because we do not know what it is like to be only a millimeter or so tall. No more do wizards lose their dominance because they are unaware it exists. Besides, Hogwarts could easily include a few units on science. It would certainly be less of a waste of time than _flying_ lessons, wouldn't you agree?"

"Shakespeare wrote sonnets. And he adapted stories. He was brilliant because of the way he operated within and played with constraints. The purebloods don't understand them and that makes them _lazy_.

"You admire my intellect? You think I'm like you? Isn't it _interesting_ that we were both raised by Muggles, and had to _make sense_ of the wizarding world? Don't you think that put us in a better position to understand how things worked and work around them? Pureblood wizards are blind! They have no reflex to even think of their world as intelligible or to reach for anything but a brute force solution. Lucius Malfoy is counted as _clever_ just because he used both magic _and_ money in a world where most people only reach for one.

"You're signing _our _death warrant, and robbing the Wizarding world of anyone who will truly appreciate or expand it."

"Now, Miss Granger, that is a silly argument," Riddle said softly. "You can't expect the two of us to count as evidence. Have you _seen_ what most muggle borns are like? You are an obvious outlier, and I, too, where half-blooded wizards are concerned. Purebloods do not look down on the breed simply because of muggle blood, though they do consider every muggle-born child the product of muggles stealing their magical blood through the many brutal rapes against not fully functional witches in the middle ages. No, they also look down on muggle-borns for being sluggish, and at a disadvantage when they arrive in places like this."

His voice turned bitter. "But say you were right. Say muggle-borns had some special advantage because of their upbringing. A child raised by wolves may run faster than one raised by humans, and may be tougher and stronger, but the risk of a child being eaten is too great to hand over all our babes to the wolf pack, or even one, unless there is no other way. You and I may have gained advantages. It is simply too dangerous to our kind to allow more children than necessary to be raised as we were."

Hermione's voice got colder. "But exceptions are all you _do_ care about. You have contempt for Goyle and Ron. You just aren't _afraid_ of them, like you are Muggles, since they can only work in a domain you understand better than they do. They're just chess pieces that won't bite back. You must not really think of them as fully human either. Is anyone in that category? Besides fragment-of-a-soul you?"

Riddle chuckled. "Haven't you been paying attention, Miss Granger? I would think a girl as clever as you _would_, given the stakes, but no matter. No, I cannot say with certainty that anyone I've met _is _in that category."

He smiled at her and brought his hand up to her cheek again. "You, however, just _might_ be."


	11. Chapter 11

_Chapter 11_

Hermione turned her head away from his touch. "Did it ever occur to you you're looking in the wrong places? You didn't contradict my claim that wizards tend to be intellectually lazy. If you want creative, inventive people, I think you'll find more of them in high level labs than even the Ravenclaw common room. And if you are selecting for that kind of willing-to-see-people-as-ends ruthlessness that you accused _me_ of, I think you might get on better with the inventors of the atomic bomb that you'd predict!

"But even if I'm wrong, are you so sure that you, the self-proclaimed cleverest person living, can't come up with _some_ more parsimonious solution to preserve and make use of the _interesting_ Muggles?"

"Fascinating question, Miss Granger," Riddle said, his smile broadening. "I suppose I could if I really wanted to, but you are the one making the case, and I should like to see if you show the same head for tactics that you do for magic. So imagine yourself in my position; it's not hard, seeing as you're the brightest witch of your age and I am the most powerful dark wizard of all time. Imagine yourself immortal, unconstrained by most wizards' notions of morality, and able to access and understand all areas of magic, whether light or dark, without the slightest constraint imposed by other wizards, or any other beings at all. How would _you_ try to spare the 'most interesting Muggles,' as you put it? Think hard before you speak. You might lose your slight chance to persuade me if your idea is poorly conceived."

"Ok, ok, give me a second." She closed her eyes and screwed up her face to think. "You didn't accept my suggestion to just defuse the bombs - though I'll note you didn't really rebut it either - but in fairness, that only solves one specific threat. It wouldn't help against biological or chemical weapons (though you might have a little more time to defend against either of those. If you weren't going to make everyone too dumb or too dead to look at the world, how could you limit what they did?

"There's been some success with propagating some kind of honor culture where it's _shameful_ to work in certain fields. And to an extent that kind of thinking has limited the use of what Muggles would call the Unforgiveable weapons, I guess. But it'd be hard to implement. And it relies on _you _setting up the correct limits. So if you could do it the other way, and have a whitelist of avenues of research - the space program seems good - and _steer_ people's attention there. I _guess_ you could use the Imperius?"

Her eyes flew open and she met Riddle's gaze. "Oh! But you must know if this would work, since you've actually used the spell frequently. The textbook description is patchy. Could you simply Imperius lab heads to not want to write grants for weapons research? Or can you direct someone to do something under Imperiusthat you yourself do not know how to do? Something abstract, that you can't picture? I know you can make someone do something that _they_ physically don't know how to do - like a waltz or something, but I assume you can't Imperius someone into doing an integral if they only know algebra. But you must know the answer! Would you tell me? Please?"

Riddle laughed. "_Another _fascinating question, Miss Granger. Let's find out, shall we? _Imperio!_"

Hermione's awareness of the room, of Riddle, of her own body faded out as though someone were turning a dimmer switch. She was alone with her thoughts, one of which seemed particularly urgent, "_How could someone wriggle out of your _Fidelius fictus_ spell? Think creatively._"

Hermione grinned as she came back to herself. "No, that was a lot easier to break than the physical compulsion. The pull felt a lot more diffuse. I _don't_ think that would work to direct people to do research - just to go through the motions. Than-," she fell silent.

"You're welcome," Riddle smirked. "Well, dear me, that's your best idea gone. Perhaps I'll let you think of another one later, but for now, I have an experiment of my own to perform. _Imperio!_"

Riddle took Hermione's free hand in his and placed her wand back in it, then drew it out ahead of her, and pointing toward a spider that was climbing along the wall. "Now, Miss Granger," he breathed into her ear, "I want to see if you have the capacity to do something else entirely. I want to see if you are able to perform dark magic under this curse. So...if you please, would you cast the Cruciatus Curse on that spider?"

Hermione watched her hand, with Riddle's folded loosely around it, swing down to aim at the spider. Her lips parted and shaped the word _Crucio_, and, as the sound escaped her lips, a jet of red light flew from her wand and set the spider convulsing. Hermione couldn't turn to look at Riddle, but she could feel his cruel, bright joy as though it was flowing from his hand to hers. Riddle took the wand away and removed the curse.

"Oh my," he breathed. "What a fascinating result. I believe you said yourself, Miss Granger - you can't use the Imperius to make someone do something they are incapable of, yet do you see that spider? Look at how it's still writhing. You just put it under the Cruciatus Curse. That's why it can't seem to walk. Now why would _you_ be able to do the Cruciatus Curse?"

Hermione clenched and unclenched her hand, trying to excise the feeling of the curse passing through her. "Don't be _ridiculous_! You just made me say the word, which I am perfectly capable of doing - crucio, crucio, crucio. Harry told me that it's all depended on intention. You have to want the other person to suffer, and it works even better if you enjoy it. That's why his curse was weaker than Bellatrix's. But you had your hand around mine and I _felt_ you cast the spell, so don't think you can trick me just because your timing was good."

"_Potter _tried it? Dear me, how fascinating, but evidently neither he nor you understand how the curse works, Miss Granger," Riddle said lightly. "Even if I were capable of forming an empathetic link, no such thing can be created between two wizards when casting that particular spell. It requires intensely personal hatred, or spite, you see. I could have held your wand in your hand and said the words myself, of course, but the fact that you said them is all the evidence I need. Here, I'll show you. _Imperio!_"

The wand was back in Hermione's hand, but this time Riddle did not take that hand. He simply pointed to the spider and said, in a voice that resounded in her head,

"Cast the Cruciatus Curse on that spider again."

The incantation leapt from her lips faster than thought, and the shock was enough to shake her loose of the Imperius curse. Without hesitation, Hermione turned and brought the Cruciatus curse to bear on Riddle. He screamed - a keening wail that echoed off the walls. Riddle lunged at her, knocking the wand from her hand and breaking the spell. He stooped down and snatched the wand up before she could react, pointing it at her and breathing hard.

"Well played, Miss Granger," Riddle said, his amused tone still present under ragged breathing. "I imagine that was your goal all along? Pretend you didn't believe you could cast the curse so you could get your free hand on the wand? Unfortunately for you, I learned to keep my wits under that curse by practicing it on myself at Hogwarts."

Hermione was doubled over, as far as the rope would let her bend, almost succeeding in not crying. Riddle peered at her for a few seconds, then chuckled softly.

"Unless you actually believed...you actually, _really _thought you wouldn't be able to cast the curse?" He began to laugh in earnest this time. "Well, Miss Granger, I hope my point is proven? I should hope it is, because with what you just did, you put yourself in the same class as me. You just cast the Cruciatus Curse on a fellow human being - one who many would feel deserves it, to be sure, but a fellow human being - and you know what the penalty is for _that_, I presume? They are called Unforgivable Curses for a reason."

"I _didn''t_. I _couldn't_ have. I was just trying to turn the wand away from the spider once I regained control - it was an impulse. It wasn't _me!_"

"You'll have a hard time convincing the Wizengamot of that, Miss Granger," Riddle said. "A successful Cruciatus curse _cannot_ be cast by accident. One has to feel malice toward the object, even if the direction is unintentional, and if the spell connected with me, that means you had the will and spite necessary to make it work. Besides-" The cruelty in his voice crested, "the Wizengamot is very, very poor at checking for memory charms. And when I have finished with you, you'll believe you cast it on me out of malice, deliberately and without accident. And you won't remember who I am, just as the Wizengamot will not. You'll be seen to be a vicious mudblood who cast an Unforgivable curse on a particularly unlucky Slytherin she was snogging out of bounds, for the same petty reasons most Gryffindors end up getting into dark magic. If you're lucky, you'll get life in Azkaban. If not, and I rather think not, given the Wizengamot's traditional majority Slytherin membership, you'll get the Dementor's kiss. And wouldn't that be a pity?"

Hermione lifted her head, and shouted, "How stupid, _exactly_, do you think everybody is? There'd be a missing victim, and everyone know I _couldn't_. And I'm sure, if they asked me to try at trial, I'd _fail_, since I wouldn't have been being tortured and strained for the last heaven knows how many hours. And this is all premised on my _ever_ leaving this room alive anyway!"

"You think you'd get a _trial_?" Riddle asked pleasantly. "Not a chance, Miss Granger. The Wizengamot hasn't exactly moved into the most modern age where justice is concerned. Especially not where a nameless muggle-born is concerned. You might have Dumbledore try and save you, but do you really think in a Ministry where you got one of its highest ranking members almost raped and killed, you'd have any chance of being tried? The evidence is just waiting to be marshaled. Like it or not, you're in the same category as me, now. Which, speaking of..."

He magicked the rope off her other wrist and pulled her arm toward him, pressing his wand to it. "_Morsmordre!" _he barked.

The wand made contact with her flesh at only a single point, but she could see the skin sink almost a quarter inch in a sharply defined oval. It _hurt_ to look at the boundary, where her skin rose smoothly up to its natural place in odd little cliff-faces.

And then suddenly it hurt too much to look at anything at all. Riddle was drawing his wand about within the oval like a paintbrush, and, though his touch was light, the burning sensation was so acute that it felt like he was tattooing the _underside_ of the skin on the back of her arm, and had scorched through skin, muscle, bone, and muscle again to be able to reach it.

It was several moments after she was cradling her arm to her chest that she realized he had released her. And several moments after that that she opened her eyes to see a Dark Mark disfiguring her arm.


	12. Chapter 12

_Chapter 12_

"Now, what do you think the Wizengamot will make of your wand's record, with that on your arm _and _the Cruciatus curse, Miss Granger?" Riddle asked. "Now, are you going to consider my proposal from earlier?"

"What? Make the lie _true_? I don't have to power to stop you from hurting me, or tricking other people into hurting me, but I can stop you changing me."

Her voice got a little stronger as she continued, "And this is _why_ you'll lose. You say I'd be valuable to you, and, when you can't convince me that your plans are actually necessary, you'd have me destroyed out of spite."

"This is purely for protection, Miss Granger," Riddle replied. "I have no desire to destroy you, but I need some insurance against your destroying _me_, or at least to make you reconsider it. I do not want to motivate you solely with fear, though I will if that is what it takes. But truthfully, I think you underestimate what I offer you. Immortality, for a start, and access to every branch of magic you could ever want to study. And something else, too - my ear. Do you think that when I've killed my older self, I will just accept his followers uncritically? Some of them may still be loyal to him, or worse, may make the mistake of thinking me easier to depose. I shall need someone to sort the chaff from the wheat. Someone who is loyal to me, not to what he promised them. You will have the opportunity to persuade me further if you follow me. You could have eternity to argue every point you want with the only mind capable of matching yours. Is that really so little that you would prefer a life in Azkaban?"

"No," Hermione said heavily. "That's just corruption the long way round. You wouldn't offer if you didn't think I would eventually serve your purpose. If you can't make use of me - and you're conceding that you can't if you're willing to send me to the Dementors - then just take me off the board neatly." She stood up, trembling slightly, and spread her arms. "Can't you ever do something not out of spite?"

Riddle sighed. "Miss Granger, for the brightest witch of your age, you can be ridiculously thick. Weren't you listening to what I said that spell you reverse engineered to use on my diary is supposed to do?"

"It was supposed to make you immortal, by keeping part of your soul safe from any attack on your main body."

"And what did you do to yourself when you cast it?"

"You said I gave you something of myself. That it was consumed, I guess, to shock you back to life."

"Ah," said Riddle. "I lied. One of the more entertaining elements of creating soul-storing artifacts, Miss Granger, is that they can be made out of living beings. What you _actually _did was store part of your soul in _me_. As long as I live, you cannot die. And as we've already established-" he smiled the cruelest smile of the night, "-I am immortal. So you..."

Hermione drew in her breath sharply. "Really? So if you had Vowed to kill me, you would have had to kill yourself either way?" Her voice rose in pitch as she tried to stay focused on the puzzle, "Either in order to kill me or the spell would have done it, since you hadn't offed me. But you've been dead once, and you could die again. Would I be normal then?"

"I refused to vow to kill you for a reason, Miss Granger," Riddle said. "It is impossible, without destroying not only the diary, but all artifacts that preserve a piece of my soul, as well as my older self so that my body _and _soul, which contains a piece of yours, would be destroyed. I could have vowed to destroy your body, but you would have noticed that, I take it. Congratulations, Miss Granger. You are immortal. Which means if you do go to Azkaban, you will be there eternally. If I destroy your body, you will be reduced to floating about Hogwarts, only capable of possessing students or reading over their shoulders. If the Dementors kiss you? Well, I'm afraid even I don't know exactly what would become of you, but you have a charming eagerness for testing theories."

Hermione had backed up against the wall where she had be bound, arms clutching each other as she shook her head. "No, no, no..."

"Of course," Riddle said tolerantly, walking in half circles around her, "I could always check in on you every fifty years in the event you get sent to Azkaban. As we established, the Dementors are my friends. And if you'd changed your mind, well, I do owe you for letting me escape from that diary, Miss Granger."

Hermione began to cry in earnest. "I... I _can't_! But I don't want to... Please, _please_, let me go! Do something else! I _can't_..." Her legs gave way and she huddled in a miserable puddle on the floor. "Please, _please_, please..."

Riddle knelt down next to her. "I'm afraid there is nothing else I can do, Miss Granger, even if I wanted to," he said. "Like it or not, your only options are to leave this room a criminal facing an eternity of the Dementors' company, or as a Death Eater. So there you are, make your choice."


	13. Chapter 13

_Chapter 13_

Hermione was stuck in a paroxysm of horror. If she didn't yield... But even if she tried to give in, she couldn't even picture what she would say. Begging for mercy was one thing, but to rise and say, "I'll join you, Lord Voldemort" was so on the face of it ridiculous that she still might have laughed if she could draw breath around her sobs. Even if she made a plausible sounding concession, how could she possibly stick to it? Sooner or later - and probably sooner - Riddle would ask something of her she _couldn't_ do and then - an eternity of Hell, her mind wearing away. Riddle had to see that there was nothing she could do, nothing she could choose.

She lifted her head slightly, not knowing what she was about to say. Riddle slipped one finger under her chin and turned her face up, firmly, but not painfully.

"I hated crying in the orphanage," Riddle sighed. "Always struck me as pointless, but I suppose in your case it's understandable. It won't do you much good, I'm afraid Miss Granger, and in fairness, you really did bring this problem on yourself. But I can be a forgiving master, especially where someone as talented as you is concerned."

He slipped his outer robe off with his free hand and offered it to her. "Go on, cover yourself up. Your dignity is the least I can offer you."

Hermione turned to take the robe it - one small mercy she could accept without tarnishing herself, presumably the last of this type - and then she saw that her own wand was lying next to Riddle where he knelt, and that both his hands were full. Hesitantly, she leaned toward the robe and then dove.

The wand was in her hand, and with only a second before she expected Riddle to wrest it back, she snapped it cleanly over her leg and threw the pieces into one of the Room of Requirement's heaps of clutter.

"There. You can't use magic to threaten me now. We can both walk out of here. You're better off than you were - you're alive and you can run, and I'm considerably worse off, but I'm not _yours_."

Riddle's eyes widened in a combination of fury and horror, and he lunged for Hermione. She swung as hard as she could at his stomach, but he charged right through her blow and slammed her back against a bookshelf. He spun her roughly by her shoulders and slipped his arm was around her neck, and he was squeezing, forcing every ounce of breath out of her, and stopping her from taking in any more.

"Stupid girl!" Riddle spat, a slight note of panic entering his voice. "Do you realize what you've _done? _You've stripped us _both _of the power to do anything! You've made _yourself_ powerless more so than I can ever be! And now, because you defied me just when everything mattered most, I am going to do what you wanted."

HIs voice was now a snarl of cold fury as his arm tightened around her throat. "I will destroy your body, Hermione Granger. You will be reduced to almost nothing. Less than spirit, less than the meanest ghost. Unable to communicate save by possessing the unwilling. And so you shall remain until I come back and conquer this school, and even then I may leave you in that form. You _deserve it, _you _stupid, short-sighted_, _naive __**Mudblood**_!"

Hermione's vision was starting to fade out, as she scrabbled at his arm with her fingernails. Abruptly, his grip relaxed a bit, and she heard him speak again, the fury suddenly gone from his voice.

"No...no, perhaps I need not kill you, after all, Miss Granger. Dear me, in the heat of the moment, I had forgotten where we are. You know where we are, don't you, Miss Granger? The Room of Req-"

_Wand! _Hermione thought desperately. As she dropped her hands from Riddle's arm, they fell on the wand that was waiting in the shelf in front of her, exactly where she required it. She threw her arm across her body, not bothering to turn around and jammed the tip into Riddle's stomach.

"_Stupefy! Incarcerous!_"

Riddle dropped to the ground as ropes twined around him. Hermione swayed back against the wall and began blankly performing every spell she'd taught in the DA.

"_Impedimenta! Petrificus Totalus! Expelliarmus! Stupefy! Incarcerous! Impedimenta! Cruc-_"

She almost dropped the wand. She transferred it to her left hand as she flexed her palm and fingers slowly before taking it up again.

"_Levicorpus_."

Riddle bobbed gently at head height. Hermione crouched down, watching him warily, and picked up his outer robes from where they had fallen. She buttoned them up by hand, and, with Riddle floating alongside her, walked out the door.

_The villainy you teach me, I will execute. And it shall go hard, but I will better the instruction._

-Shylock, _The Merchant of Venice_


End file.
